


Contemplations in Darkened Rooms

by hollyandvice (hiasobi_writes)



Series: Holly's Round Eight H/C Bingo Card [81]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 02:19:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13284861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiasobi_writes/pseuds/hollyandvice
Summary: He'll save Kairi because it's his destiny, his responsibility, his calling, and he needs no other reason than that. And though the words of darkness feel like an oil slick against his skin and his soul, so too do they give him strength. He holds fast to that strength and fights, bearing his soul and his heart to the one person he knows can never understand.A look into Riku's mind as the darkness takes its hold. Takes place during and after the Riku boss battle before Kairi's heart is restored.





	Contemplations in Darkened Rooms

**Author's Note:**

> [yeaka](http://yeaka.tumblr.com/) prompted _riku views sora as his rival now, but he's being overrun by the darkness and sora's his only way to light/healing_ and this is the result.

The darkness wraps around him, warping everything. His senses. His mind. His body. His soul. All of it tilts and shifts and twists, digging into him from every angle. It claws at his body and drags at his soul and tears him to pieces. It would be easy—so easy—to just give in to the darkness completely. He contemplates it, flirting with the idea of letting the darkness have him. It would be… easy. But every time it edges into his consciousness he shoves it aside. He can't do that. He won't. If Sora—

He shakes the thought off. He's his own man, and he doesn't need to use anyone else as his reason for what he does. He'll follow his own path, blaze a trail all his own and damn the consequences. He'll find Kairi, he'll save her, and he won't need Sora to do it. He doesn't need Sora. He doesn't know if he ever did.

(And the darkness creeps in a little deeper, hollowing him out from the inside. It will take him and it will have him and there may be no more stopping it.)

He'll save Kairi because it's his destiny, his responsibility, his calling, and he needs no other reason than that. And though the words of darkness feel like an oil slick against his skin and his soul, so too do they give him strength. He holds fast to that strength and fights, bearing his soul and his heart to the one person he knows can never understand. The darkness gives him the power he knows he was always meant to wield, and wield it he does. Until.

Until he's struck down by the one person that shouldn't have the strength to. Until his strength fails him and he falls to the Keyblade. Until Sora—

Until Sora.

(It shouldn't hurt this much. Or maybe… maybe it should hurt more.)

He can feel the darkness crawling up over his mind again, dragging him under. Yet, through it, he can sense Sora's light, can hear Sora's words, can feel Sora's conviction. And then, all at once, it vanishes.

It wrenches the ground out from under him, leaves him reeling and struggling through the certainty that _Sora's gone_ and, for an instant, the darkness wins. He can feel the way it drags him under, blacking out his vision and filling his nose and throat with that same oil slick sensation. He gags, ready to give in, until he hears a voice. Not Sora's, but close enough. Not Sora's voice, but one that speaks of Sora, one that holds something similar to his light, something close to his conviction. One that calls Sora's name and reaches for Sora's heart and that… that seems to be enough.

He reaches through the dark and the cold and the slick and there, just on the edge, is the strength that Sora's always gifted him with. He may not like it, but, for now, Sora's strength is what he has. He reaches for it and clings to it and stands between the darkness and the voice that isn't Sora's. The voice calls a name (his name? He can't be sure), and for an instant he wants to follow it. The voice that had spoken Sora's name so gently, so lovingly, and though this name doesn't have the same resonance it feels like warmth and comfort and safety and _home_ but if he doesn't keep this voice safe, Sora—

All he can do is beg the voice to run, speak of the evils and the terrors that are coming and pray that the voice will go. And when it does, it is only the brush of a soul that feels too familiar to be anything else that lets him hold himself together. It is so close to Sora, so familiar, and yet it can't be, it can't be, and it's altogether too easy to sink back into the darkness, even as he clings to that soul, dragging it to the surface with him.

(One day, Sora will understand. One day he will too. But they need each other, balance each other, and only together can they be whole. And as Sora feels the pull back to the world of the living, his heart left far behind, he follows it. He follows because he's always, always followed Riku.

Always.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [yeaka](http://yeaka.tumblr.com/) for the drive-by beta. Part of my Round Eight H/C Bingo Card. [Come hang with me on tumblr!](http://hollyandvice.tumblr.com/)


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